20 IMCWP, Written Contribution of Party of Labour of Austria

11/19/18 9:31 PM

Austria, Party of Labour of Austria
20th IMCWP
De
En
Europe
Communist and workers' parties

Contribution of the Party of Labour of Austria at the 20th International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties, “The contemporary working class and its alliance. The tasks of its political vanguard – the Communist and Worker’s Parties – in the struggle against exploitation and imperialist wars, for the rights of the workers and of the peoples, for peace, for socialism”, Athens, 23-25 November 2018

The working class and its revolutionary party in the struggle for socialism

On behalf of the Austrian Party of Labour, I would first like to thank the Communist Party of Greece for organising and holding this year’s International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties. At the same time, I would like to convey our warmest congratulations on the occasion of the one hundredth anniversary of the Communist Party of Greece.

Now to a few thoughts on the subject of our meeting, which we will summarise in the following theses.

The working class is the exploited class in capitalism – and the revolutionary class. – Karl Marx, whose 200th birthday we celebrated this year, proved that capitalism is based on the exploitation of the working class. By virtue of private ownership of the means of production, the capitalists buy the labour-power of the propertyless workers and retain the added value contained in the products they produce, which is the source of capitalist profit. This relationship – social production and private capitalist appropriation – marks the fundamental contradiction of capitalism; the underlying property question is the fundamental question of revolution. But through its central position in the capitalist mode of production, the working class is also the revolutionary class of our time.

The historical mission of the working class is the struggle for socialism and the liberation of humanity. – It is the task of the working class to overcome capitalism. For this it is necessary for the working class to organise itself as a historic subject and to take over political rule. On this basis the capitalists will be expropriated and the means of production will be transferred to social property, which will also make planned socialist production possible. The bourgeoisie and land owners will be liquidated as classes. By completely abolishing classes, the working class finally abolishes its own rule, thereby reaching a higher stage, a classless society (communism). In this way, the liberation of the working class from the yoke of capitalist wage labour is a prerequisite for the liberation of all humankind.

The working class leads the oppressed classes in the class struggle. – The struggle of the working class radiates to other oppressed and exploited classes and strata of society, not least the farming community. The socially oppressed and exploited people’s strata, all those opposed to monopoly capital, as well as all those de facto dependent toilers forced by capital into bogus self-employment or individualism, are potential allies of the working class in the struggle against monopolies. This is the objective condition for an anti-monopoly and anti-capitalist alliance policy led by the organised working class.

The communist party makes the working class capable and ready to fight. – The connection and unity of the communist party and the working class is of decisive importance. In order to lead its struggle and fulfil its historic mission, the working class needs an independent political organisation. In this sense, it is the task of the communist party to generate and reproduce revolutionary consciousness in the working class. Its task is to comprehensively enlighten the working class, to support it in independent action, to train it in content and methodology, to offer different forms of organisation and to organise the most advanced sections in the party. The party must ensure that the working class becomes and remains mentally, physically and structurally capable of struggle.

The communist party offers analysis, strategy and goals based on Marxism-Leninism. – The communist party familiarises the working class with the world view of the proletariat, Marxism-Leninism, and trains it in its theoretical and practical application. On this basis, it offers the working class an analysis, strategy and goals that correlate with the workers’ experiences in class struggle. In particular, the party provides the insights on which it itself operates – these are dialectical and historical materialism, the Marxist analysis of capitalism, Lenin’s theory of imperialism, Bolshevik party theory in the sense of democratic centralism, and Marxist-Leninist theory of revolution and revolutionary alliance politics. In the process, the party also consolidates the qualities of solidarity and internationalism that exist in the working class.

The communist party is the highest form of class organisation and the vanguard in the struggle for socialism. – The party leads the working class in a comprehensive way in the ideological, political and economic class struggle. It organises the defence against attacks of capital and imperialism, prepares the offensive in the struggle for social, democratic and social progress, for peace and self-determination, but is never content with mere reforms. All its activities are directed towards the strategic goal of socialism and communism. The party as the highest class organisation uses broad and mass organisations such as trade unions, youth organisations or interest groups as well as possible alliance structures, but is never replaceable by these. Socialist revolution is impossible without a militant revolutionary party of the working class on a Marxist-Leninist basis. It is therefore our duty to carry out our tasks conscientiously and to act at the forefront as the consistent vanguard of the proletariat.

Socialism is topical and necessary on a global scale. – We live in the epoch of humanity’s transition from capitalism to socialism, which even the temporary setbacks of 1989-91 do nothing to change. On the contrary, the socialist revolution, the socialist construction and the realisation of a classless society are today globally a historical necessity for continued human existence and civilisation on our planet, because capitalism obviously stands for the continued path to barbarism, which meanwhile questions the survival of humanity as a species. Socialism offers the preconditions for a world of freedom and equality: through the political power of the organised working class and the socialisation of the means of production; through needs-oriented production and the planned increase of productivity; through securing the material life of all human beings; through the abolition of the exploitation; through ecologically sustainable production; through overcoming the division of society into classes and through the elimination of wars on human lives.

Without claiming to be exhaustive, these are some necessary basics. Only if the communists do good work in this respect and become stronger – in the respective national and international frameworks – we will be successful in the struggle for the liberation of the working class and socialism. And humanity is urgently dependent on this success.